Create a method to detect NTFS-compressed cluster blocks on a disk (RAW data stream). A method could be to write a generic signature to detect the beginning of NTFS-compressed file segments on a disk. This method is useful in carving and scanning for textual strings.

Write a FUSE-based mounter for SleuthKit, so that disk images can be forensically mounted using TSK.

Modify SleuthKit's API so that the physical location on disk of compressed files can be learned.

Big Programming/System Projects

Most of these are large systems that could be split up into several small projects.

Carvers

Develop a new carver with a plug-in architecture and support for fragment reassembly carving. Take a look at:

EnCase Enhancement

Develop an EnScript that allows you to script EnCase from Python. (You can do this because EnScripts can run arbitrary DLLs. The EnScript calls the DLL. Each "return" from the DLL is a specific EnCase command to execute. The EnScript then re-enters the DLL.)

Research Projects

Medium-Sized Research Projects

Develop an image processing program that can reliably detect screen shots. (Screen shots are useful to find on a hard drive because they can imply the presence of a remote control or surveillance program.)